Heston Blumenthal at Home

What a rewarding book this is for anyone wanting to understand the why and how of better cooking (rather than wanting simply to add a few recipe strings to their bow). I bought it after watching "How to Cook like Heston" on Channel 4 TV. I find it impossible not to admire Heston; his brave determination to question and re-invent basic rules or traditions of cookery is always allied to a scientific and analytical mind, and appears much more like a journey of discovery than arrogance. His 100-page or so autobiography in the first third of "The Fat Duck Cookbook" is wonderfully moving and inspiring through the combination of innocence and intelligence which shines from each page.Heston has become one of the torchbearers, with other great chefs like Ferran Adrià, of a much less competitive, secretive and elitist approach to high-end cooking than in previous eras; as in the international scientific community these guys often interact with, discoveries are shared openly and are there to be verified, or not! I groan when press and TV pundits caricature Heston as the "mad boffin" or whatever; apart from betraying wilful ignorance of his achievements, such superficial comments completely miss the exceptional generosity of his spirit and his approach.As an enthusiastic amateur cook I tried parts of five or six "Fat Duck Cookbook" recipes where our limited equipment allowed - enough to get excited by the results. So I felt a great surge of gratitude towards Heston for writing this new book, making available (to a domestic kitchen, the "at home" of the title) so much of his profound understanding of how food behaves when you cook it. Heston has been one of the few creative people in any walk of life to keep asking "Why?" - the child's question which is the fount of creativity most of us lose when we become `professionals'.So here he gives us lots of apparently familiar and popular dishes like roast chicken, (roasted) lamb shanks, (braised) pork belly, French onion soup, pea and ham soup, shepherd's pie, prawn cocktail, Scotch eggs, chilli con carne, fish pie, spaghetti carbonara, various risotti, quiche Lorraine, lemon tart, vanilla ice cream, panna cotta, cookies, many side dishes and also a load of stocks and dressings - all newly minted to transform their flavour. Flavour (= taste + aroma) is fundamental for Heston and technique always serves it, so the opening chapter of "Heston Blumenthal at home" is all about flavour: what it is, why it matters so much, and how to enhance it. It's a great read.He also includes simplified versions of some Fat Duck recipes, like red cabbage gazpacho, scallop tartare with white chocolate, or bacon and egg ice cream. And he also includes a short chapter on sous-vide (vacuum + water-bath) cooking. OK, not everyone may feel that sous-vide is the future, though domestic water baths are apparently selling very well now, and I noticed that the popular kitchenware supplier Lakeland has launched its own not-very-expensive domestic sous-vide equipment. However, Heston doesn't push it at us - it's there if you want to know more.At the end of the book Heston gives a break-down of specialist equipment that isn't necessary for quite a number of the recipes but will help a lot with all of them and much more (and most of the tools, like food mixers, blenders, mandolins, digital probes and timers are items most keen cooks will have anyway). He explains each one's usefulness carefully. He also explains a list of specialist ingredients, and adds a final short chapter which is well worth reading before trying any recipes, including an emphasis on `reading through first'.I couldn't help noticing that Heston's approach to roast chicken, which he also unveiled in the TV series "In Search of Perfection", has attracted some controversy here at Amazon because a chicken usually has more bacteria on or near the skin than other meats, and this is maybe an example of where `reading through first' might have helped. Having been a keen slow-roaster of other meats than poultry, I've now used this recipe's slow-cook method at 90C entirely successfully, and without any resulting red/pink meat or hint of illness but with an amazing increase in succulence and flavour (who said chicken breast is bland!). It helps for the would-be cook to read the introduction to the chapter it's in (on "Meats") first, and get the link to sous-vide methods (Heston explains that he developed the slow-cook method as a fore-runner of sous-vide). Sous-vide recipes for chicken do use low temperatures, but explain that it's the all-pervasiveness of the temperature that ensures sterilisation; and Heston's stress on(optional) brining, removing any trussing, pulling the legs out and away from the body (really important), having a pre-heated oven, checking with an oven thermometer and using thorough temperature probing for 3-4 hours, and then a long resting time (45 mins), ensure that the necessary pasteurisation time of around 30 mins at 60C is more than met.So this book isn't a straightforward recipe book. But then surely not many potential purchasers of a Heston Blumenthal book will expect it to be? It's a superb resource, explaining why basic cooking processes have the effects that they do, and helping us all to use the processes with much greater understanding, and it inspires you to have a go at some pretty amazing new flavour experiences. Most of us probably won't be able to afford to eat at The Fat Duck very often, if ever, but discovering you can produce these flavours yourself is perhaps even more exciting.

I have been watching Hestons shows for a while and have been intrigued about how he prepares his recipes. I bought this book because it was more about home recipes and had lots of great tips to cook everything from eggs, steak and vegetables (not that he puts them together that way).I love reading the tips and recipes. Each recipe has an introduction about what he was trying to achieve. This helps me to decide what to cook and whether it fits with my own thinking of what to cook. Also the layout of each recipe appear to fit on a single page, except for few that even Heston outline are some the more involved recipes. Recipes have large text and are written in the order of preparation. Each new step appears to start as new paragraph and this useful as I can use a ruler to see where I am down the page.Each chapter starts with the tips and explanations of special techniques relevant to that chapter. And the text is of a decent size so if you need to go back and look for something specific it is easier to find.Let me just say, that one of the first recipes that piqued my interest was the brussel sprouts, because I hate soggy cabbage, brussel spouts and brocoli. My childhood was full of these and it really turned me off green leafy vegetables. As such I am generally anemic due to this hatred. Heston made cooking brussel spouts simple and delicious. I have vowed this to be my only way of cooking brussel spouts as it has enabled me to eat them regularly for the first time in 20 years.My second recipe was the roast chicken - while involved - the first words from my husband when it came out of the oven were "that looks perfect! just like a recipe book chicken". Not only where the looks good but the flavours were beautiful.I am yet to try the dessert recipes and my husband is keen for the Earl Grey panna cotta. But if it is anything like any of the other recipes I'm sure it will be wonderful.For all those cooks out there who can bake a cake from scratch, know that a cup of flour is 250g, and slow oven is about 100 degrees celsius, you will not need the minimum gadgets that Heston suggests. I managed to cook a decent chicken without a thermometer and a digital scale. However, I am thinking about buying these as I progress with cooking.